The Acquisition

by Louisa Trent

  "Generally speaking, is that not the experience of most ladies with most gentlemen?"

  "I suppose it is. But I am not most gentlemen, and you are hardly a lady."

  His hands smoothed over her breasts now, and she moaned.

  "To please me, Mrs. Smith, you must come. I insist upon it. Come for me." he urged, while she self-gratified. "Come for me. I would see your face when you climax. Watching your orgasm would give me pleasure. You do wish to pleasure me, do you not, Mrs. Smith?"

  In all the times she had practiced at Ruby's, she had never once climaxed. And if she playacted an orgasm, she knew he would know.

  She pushed the dildo harder, going deeper, thrusting faster, until she was drenched in perspiration. Her hair stuck to her back and her breasts swung vulgarly in her frenzy to find release. How ugly she must look! How bestial!

  "So wild and uninhibited," he said softly.

  At his words, she listed to the side.

  "Place your arm around my shoulders," he demanded.

  Grateful for the additional support, Henry leaned forward, into him, her face cuddled into the crook of his neck, her free arm thrown somewhere around his shoulder, she couldn't say where, her limb still obscenely raised, her hand working the ivory in and out of her weeping vagina. No closer to climax, she began to vocalize, little disturbed sounds of frustration.

  "Shh," he whispered, his palm playing hypnotically over her bare skin, upwards now along the length of her spine, spreading the clammy wetness of her perspiration over the surface of her back, cooling her skin even as his touch heated her. "Relax," he soothed. "Let go."

  "I cannot!" Her muscles were obstinately tight. She needed that money, and her own body was defeating her. He insisted she climax, and she couldn't. Her failure was the same failure she had always known, and she hated not winning.

  Removing the ivory from her vagina, she flung it on top of the desktop.

  "I will retrieve my clothing and leave," she told him, and moved away.

  He pulled her back, his hand cuffed around her wrist. "Not yet." His lips planted themselves softly on her bare breast.

  She was about to tell him it was no use, that she couldn't give him what he needed, that as a woman she was a horrible failure, when he kissed her breast. Lightly. Just a moist breath blown gently over her hot skin, before his mouth opened over the achy end. He drew the tip inside.

  Oh, God! He was suckling her. Strongly. Noisily. Lustily. The hungry sounds of his sucking triggered a corresponding drawing, gnawing sensation inside her vagina that left her panting and wanting and needy. She had to have more!

  "Harder," she said raggedly. "Do it harder!"

  This was a novel experience. At Ruby's, she had received endless and calculated instruction on how to please a man, but none on how to receive pleasure--indeed, no man save Joshua, had ever touched her--and so she was unprepared for her own greed, a greed she had no control over. It was frightening how that greed took on a life of its own.

  He bit her. On the nipple. Just the very tip.

  It hurt.

  His teeth clamped, grinding back and forth on the tender flesh. Agony.

  She screamed. In pain. In rage. In defiance. In wanton pleasure.

  In their shared past, Josh had never treated her with anything less than gentleness. Even when he took her virginity, he had shown her care. He had always shown her care. Now he deliberately pained her. The pained delight took her by surprise.

  She fought the weakness. Tooth and nail, she tried to keep the release at bay.

  It made no sense! To please him, she needed to let go and climax. But she couldn't help but feel fearful, threatened ... resentful ... for he held all the power here, and she held none, not even over the traitorous response of her own body. It wasn't fair for it to happen this way! Was it not enough he held her future locked in his hand? Must he hold her pleasure too?

  She twisted away. "No! Stop!" Her glistening nipple popped free of his mouth. "Let me go. I don't wish this."

  "Be silent." His palm closed around her bare buttock, holding her in place.

  She bucked, arched ... panicked. Struggled! Her bared breasts shifted and bounced.

  To stop their vulgar bobbing,she crossed her arms, each hand covering a full mound.

  "Arms down at your sides," he ordered.

  "I will not!"

  Like a limp serviette, she was dragged onto his lap face down, and his finger, his thick long finger, was driven roughly back to front up inside her vagina.

  He commenced a bruising thrust.

  "No!" She screamed the word and tried to get away, to escape him.

  He held her fast. "Take it."

  She deliberately clenched her muscles in an inexplicable attempt to keep him out of her vagina.

  Immediately, he pushed a second digit up inside her, driving it up inside her protesting passage, using the rear approach. Once in place, he opened both fingers inside her, pressing them relentlessly against the walls of her vagina, stretching her out.

  "You will do this!" he ordered.

  "I tell you, I cannot!"

  His free palm came down on her buttock, the slap sharp and bright.

  She bucked.

  He smacked her again, harder this time. "Take it, damn you, take it!"

  Something hard and implacable broke inside her. The hurt she had nurtured for seven years was wrenched away, and a fierce rapture rocked over her like a tidal wave, sweeping her along with it. Her body rolled and swelled and crested, the tight knot in her lower belly releasing. In that wretchedly awkward positioning, that inelegant face down, bottom up pose, she grasped Josh's calf, holding onto his limb for dear life, lest she never find her way back.

  And then she forgot how very unpretty she must look, forgot about performing, lost sight of everything save what he was doing to her, save what she was feeling.

  A shrill and ugly cry broke her lips, followed by another. She convulsed, teeth bared, body twitching, helplessly losing herself to the encroachment of pleasure.

  Dear Lord! Could a person die of ecstasy?

  Only when the aftershocks had petered out, did he let her go.

  She stumbled clumsily to her feet. "Do I get the money now?"

  He laughed uproariously. "Considering I got you off like a well-primed canon , madam, you should be the one paying me!"

  "And here I thought you were a sea captain, when apparently you are a gigolo!"

  "Picked up a few fancy foreign words in the brothel, did you? Well, tell you what, you may use them later when you French me--nothing like oral sex for showing a man gratitude." Josh chuckled some more at the cutting stare she sent his way. "Do I at least get a thank you?"

  "Whatever for? You spanked me!" she said peevishly, reaching behind to rub a smarting buttock.

  "And you loved it. I should have taken you over my knee long ago; a hellion like you needed a firm hand. A little corporal discipline would have stood you in good stead."

  Her hand left her hurting posterior, and moved to rub her throbbing nipple.

  "Here," he said. "Let me see." Shooing her hand away, he inspected her breast. "Now, my behavior here was unconscionable, and I do apologize." He circled where he had strenuously suckled. "I certainly never meant to bruise you. I was carried away, transported in the heat of the moment."

  He was jesting, of course, poking fun at her ability to make a man like him forget himself, when they both knew the bruises were not passion-provoked, unless that passion was anger. The bruises were merely part and parcel of what he had paid for, which was his calculated domination of her. His sarcasm gladdened her, however, for it put what had just happened into its proper perspective.

  His lack of seriousness was borne out a moment later when, leaning over, he kissed her badly swollen nipple, then looked up at her sorrowfully. "You will hurt for a few days. But then, understanding your temperament as I do, you will most likely enjoy the hurt. Now, did I pain you anywhere else?"

  Her eyes dropp
ed to her reddened cleft.

  "I see. There too, eh? Shall I kiss those pretty swollen lips and make them all better?"

  At the naughty suggestion, molten honey seeped from her labia, the lubricating droplets easing the soreness his two large fingers had caused. "Any damage is covered under our agreement," she said, sounding more like a prissy old maid than a trained whore. "So--what say you? Have we a contract, sir?"

  "If you need money, I will gladly give you whatever the amount. You need not suffer my attentions if you have no wish to."

  "I do not take charity." As to his comment about suffering, she kept mum. The man was arrogant enough already, without her adding unnecessarily to his conceit.

  There had been no suffering. A little pain, yes. But pain made the pleasure all the sweeter. Wasn't that always the way of it?

  "I warn you, madam, it's all or nothing. You will not hold back with me."

  "Fine," she grumbled, nursing her grudge anew, for though he was of a dominant bent, she had never been of a submissive persuasion.

  Henry would just have to pretend. And there was no better time to start than now. "You will have my all," she conceded.

  Placing a thumb against the top of her sex, he began to rub her swollen clitoris with one hand, while his other hand moved to her smarting bottom.

  "All or nothing," he repeated, feathering a teasing finger down the crevice between her buttocks.

  "Yes. Yes," she agreed, distraught, her bare breasts now violently heaving, hoping he would do what he did before, craving the bite of his kiss on her bruised nipples, wanting ... no needing ... the pain of it. But pride prevented her from asking him to perform the service. "I said so, did I not?" she asked, refusing to beg, refusing to submit, fighting him with her mind, even as her body gave in. "I have agreed to all of your conditions."

  Hating herself, hating him too, and with fear tasting like a rusted nail in her mouth, as he stroked deep within her buttocks, she wailed out another surrender, her body succumbing to his touch, no pretense at all.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  His little whore sat rigidly straight on the very edge of the leather seat in the furthermost corner of this, his largest of carriages. Harry was as far away from him as was possible within the close confines, her thin cloak clutched protectively around her. Josh sat directly across from her, slouched into his corner, an erection that refused to soften turning each moment of extended celibacy into unrelieved anguish. She was killing him for sure.

  He wanted his little whore naked. Had it been warmer, he would have insisted she shed that ugly cloak she wore like a wall between them. The interior of the carriage was completely private; besides, the driver, his former first mate, saw no more than his former Captain told him to see. But the night was lamentably damp, and afraid she might catch cold, Josh allowed Harry her poor faded wall of black.

  In his black mood, that was the only concession he had allowed her. She was nude beneath the pitiful wrap, her full breasts jiggling as the carriage wheels rolled over the uneven cobblestone streets of New Bedford.

  "Open your cloak," he ordered, urgency finally besting him. The night wasn't all that damp. As long as she kept the ugly cloak over her shoulders, she should not suffer the cold overly much. He had to see those enormous nipples ...

  At least she didn't make him wait. Quick as a shark strike in bloodied waters, she untied the tattered black ribbon that had held her cloak together.

  All for show. She untied the ribbons fast enough and at the same time managed to show him nothing. Stingy girl!

  "More. Spread the cloak open. And while you are at it, spread yourself open too." Granted, it was a coarse request, but Harry only seemed to respond to the harshest extremes of coercion. He could only guess that over the years she had become inured to subtle approaches.

  Though ... though ... for a woman who had whored her way through Boston, until caught with her sticky fingers in the silverware drawer, her passage remained absurdly narrow. Tight. Not virginal, certainly, but not a well-used sheath either. Her glove would fit his hand with little room to spare.

  Feasting his eyes on her generous bosom entertained him admirably for a while. Hoping for more ruts in the lane, his gaze dropped to her trim waist and flat belly before coming to rest at the denuded vee.

  She was closed, her shapely thighs protecting the gates to the kingdom.

  He wouldn't have it! He had agreed to pay her a fortune, and he would see the treasure nestled within anytime he wished, which was to say, all of the time.

  He reached across the narrow distance that separated them, and wrenched her knees apart.

  Now she was well and truly open, no pubic hair shadowing the notch. He didn't care for her mons bare like that...

  He knew himself well enough to understand why; her lack of pubic hair was a stark reminder of her chosen profession. How many men had passed through that wet valley on the way to paradise, he wondered.

  Wondering could make a man crazed. Far better not to think about such things, not to remember how innocent she had once been...

  "You will keep your limbs like so," he barked at her.

  "The pose is unseemly." Her nose rose to the carriage ceiling. "No true gentleman would make such a request in a conveyance."

  "Harry, if you are once again insinuating that I am not a gentleman born, I couldn't agree with you more. I have had to work long and hard for my place in society."

  "That is not what I meant..."

  Josh held up his hand. "I don't care about the expectations of your other gentlemen protectors, but I expect you will make it available to me whenever I fancy. This means seeing it and touching it and smelling it and penetrating it, at my discretion. For that to happen, you will need to stop crossing your ankles and start opening your thighs. All the way. No pretended ladylike demeanor, no virginal airs, no maidenly modesty. We both know you are none of those. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Yes, sir. Very clear. I never meant to disparage your background. I apologize."

  Did she apologize for what she said then, or what she had said in the past?

  Her words back then had stung ... they had also driven him like a demon to make something of himself. Always ambitious, after her cutting remarks, his need to improve his lot in life had consumed him. He had worked relentlessly to rise up the ranks, to master his own ship, and then to own a ship. Now, he owned a fleet of ships, thanks in good part to her kick in the pants.

  When the carriage stopped in front of Ben's door, Josh tore his rapt gaze away from Harry's pretty rosebud, and reached across to her. "Allow me," he said, and closed her cloak, tying the tattered black ribbon neatly under her chin.

  Touching her proved difficult. The urge to possess her was hellish. Accustomed to discipline, to doing without, he sucked up his discomfort, until she loitered over a useless attempt to fix her bright red hair. Then, he said irritably, "Leave it."

  "If my hair is mussed, my sister-in-law will suspect our relationship."

  Her hair was down, but it was by no means mussed, at least not by his hands--another longed-for activity he had denied himself. "Beth will know regardless."

  She gasped. "But how?"

  "Madam, your orgasmic glow has yet to wear off."

  Her hands went to her face.

  "Flushed," Josh told her, and smiled with pride; he had given her an orgasm, her first one unless he was very mistaken. "Also," he cheerily continued, feeling remarkably smug, "it is quite obvious you are nude under that deplorable cloak. The material is worn thin, and your body is lush. And when you move ... well ... your body takes on a certain unmistakable fluidity."

  Now Harry clapped both hands to her mouth. "My sister-in law is a terrible gossip. By the morrow, all of New Bedford will know of our change of circumstances."

  "What of it?"

  "The behind-the-hand whispers!"

  "Surely, there were whispers about you before, in staid Boston?"

  "My concern is for you, sir. Not myself. I can
tell appearances matter a great deal to you, that you are protective of your personal reputation." Her eyes dropped. "Besides, what was there to gossip about in Boston? I told you already, I was employed there as a housekeeper and cook. My skills were much sought after."

  He fondled a round breast over the blasphemy of cheap black cloth. "How skilled, hmm?"

  "Very skilled." Her eyes blazed defiantly, not liking his teasing innuendo.

  Well, he didn't like her lies either. Housekeeper and cook, indeed! She was a whore in those wealthy homes, not a servant. Though her chapped hands continued to leave him perplexed...

  "You will show me your skills later, when we return home. Neither of us will get much rest tonight, I'm afraid. Good thing you are my whore, not my housekeeper. You need not rise early to make me breakfast." He winked. "There are some compensations to be had for your change of circumstances, eh?"

  Once his driver opened the carriage door, Josh jumped to the ground. Turning back, he helped Harry alight, swinging her out easily, his rough seaman's hands bracketing her waist, his nicked and callused fingers sinking into her flesh, softly giving, now that she wasn't wearing a corset. It was all he could do not to take her there against the side of the vehicle, up against the wheel, in clear view of her brother's house.

  Once again, self-discipline made him loosen his hold. Like a gentleman, Josh escorted Harry to the front door.

  Once inside the front parlor, Joshua came right to the point. "Ben, I have engaged your sister as my new housekeeper. I have brought her home to gather her belongings. Naturally, I will recompense you and Beth for stealing her away."

  "Who do you think you are, comin' in here and tellin' me what my sister will do?" Ben slurred in reply.

  Josh's childhood friend was in his cups earlier than usual tonight; the bottle of whiskey on the oak table was already more than half empty, and the evening was yet young.

  "I may not be a rich ship owner like you, Joshua Kane, but I provide for my own kin, be they in trouble with the law or not. Harry had it good here, sittin' around on her arse all the day long, eatin' me food, havin' me bride wait on her hand and foot. She never had to do naught to earn her keep. You be acting like some gentrified toff, with your big words and your polite manners. I knew you when you had not a pot to piss in, when you were just a whoreson bastard..."